Talk:Muv-Luv Alternative/@comment-115.133.202.213-20130215063827/@comment-4391208-20130216062527
Alright, just let me get my points in order. Considering what went on for Sadogashima, the explosion was at least 70+ to 80 kilometers in diameter, considering its epicenter position on the island (slightly east of the Hive) and how it engulfed everything. So yes, ML Engine explosions are powerful; powerful enough, at any rate, to penetrate 1.2 kilometers of alien material to destroy the Hive core room, or at least trigger a catastrophic collapse of the core chamber, one strong enough to kill the Sadogashima Reactor. Either way, that did prove the power of an ML Drive. It wasn't a direct hit, yet it cleared out what a Charged Particle Cannon blast failed to do, twice. So why not a direct detonation over Kashgar? First, Yuuko only secured the help of the US/UN forces by suggesting that there was something to it rather than a blind strike. G-Elements, BETA technology, the works. Whatever prevented the US from launching an attack against the Kashgar Hive with their store of G-Bombs the moment the knowledge was made known that humanity just obtained a cheat sheet of the Hives on Earth must have applied to Ouka as well; apprehension, political pressure, fear of the unknown, etc. If they were going on a blind strike, they wouldn't even need the shuttle; just set the XG-70d on overdrive, drop it, and watch the fireworks. No need for any humans, no need for any of the tension. The Valkyries would remain, and fight the BETA for the next decade, before the survivors retire peacefully, with stories to share to each other and their successors. Sounds like a right and good easy way to end this story. Secondly, the Rutherford Field is a controlled gravity distortion, not a instantenous vaporizer; punching through the Hive monument using the momentum of an orbital drop is an instant no-go. Getting in through the front door is going to be hard; considering how much it took for them to collaspe one hallway to prevent reinforcements, if they had landed anywhere within 30 kilometers of the Hive they would be stuck on open ground without anything to protect them. Even if they had a runaway ML core, there was no solid guarantee that it could penetrate through 4 kilometers of superhardened materials; considering the capabilities of the Superior, it's going to take a lot more to kill it than triggering a chamber collapse. They don't need blast radius; they need a damn deep crater. Third, a lot of the information about the BETA in the last leg of things were battlefield testimonials and educated guesses by Yuuko and most of the main cast (which are only slighly better as opposed to the random conjectures thrown around prior to Alt IV). To us, we have the metaknowledge to recognize it as the VN telling us the truth of the setting, but in their fictional context I don't think I need to go into account how politics and lack of open communication and transparency between nations and organizations are going to severely put a dent in any effort to share strategic information. Just look at the Soviet esper project; if they could harvest and accelerate embryonic growth, why hasn't another faction within the Red Union harnessed that technology to create non-esper shock troops? I don't think the Soviets would care about the red-tape trappings of human rights and such. With all the data on hand they probably saw it for themselves how they're going to need more than two G-Bombs to crack the Original Hive; and if they were planning to attack the Original Hive, why hold back the G-Bombs for a contingency plan that has the same results as losing Operation Ouka (the death of humanity)? Why not crack the Original Hive open, blast a way down to the core chamber and end the Superior? They had the power to do so since the first G-Bomb went operational, they just didn't know it. When they knew it, they still had the G-Bombs reserved as a secondary option. Until Ouka succeeded, there wasn't anyone willing to bet on the long odds; and seriously, who could blame them? Yuuko had to dangle the promise of a G-Element factory (we still don't know if such a thing exists or was part of the falsified data sent to the UN/US) in order to get the two major players on the track. Granted, speaking out of the VN, an orbital strike would be a shit way to end the story, and they either didn't think of it, or discarded the idea. But within the story, even a runaway ML core, I feel, lacks the power to be actually called a proper "certain-kill" strike. Yes, one swallowed an island, but it couldn't even kill all the BETA on that island.